“Yamsi”—on the very quay-side so to speak—seems to furnish the
Shakespearian touch of the comic to the real tragedy of the fatuous drowning of
all these people who to the last moment put their trust in mere bigness, in the
reckless affirmations of commercial men and mere technicians and in the
irresponsible paragraphs of the newspapers booming these ships! Yes, a grim
touch of comedy. One asks oneself what these men are after, with this very
provincial display of authority. I beg my friends in the United States pardon for
calling these zealous senators men. I don’t wish to be disrespectful. They may
be of the stature of demi-gods for all I know, but at that great distance from the
shores of effete Europe and in the presence of so many guileless dead, their size
seems diminished from this side. What are they after? What is there for them to
find out? We know what had happened. The ship scraped her side against a
piece of ice, and sank after floating for two hours and a half, taking a lot of
people down with her. What more can they find out from the unfair badgering
of the unhappy “Yamsi,” or the ruffianly abuse of the same.
“Yamsi,” I should explain, is a mere code address, and I use it here
symbolically. I have seen commerce pretty close. I know what it is worth, and I
have no particular regard for commercial magnates, but one must protest against
these Bumble-like proceedings. Is it indignation at the loss of so many lives
which is at work here? Well, the American railroads kill very many people
during one single year, I dare say. Then why don’t these dignitaries come down
on the presidents of their own railroads, of which one can’t say whether they are
mere means of transportation or a sort of gambling game for the use of American
plutocrats. Is it only an ardent and, upon the whole, praiseworthy desire for
information? But the reports of the inquiry tell us that the august senators,
though raising a lot of questions testifying to the complete innocence and even
blankness of their minds, are unable to understand what the second officer is
saying to them. We are so informed by the press from the other side. Even such
a simple expression as that one of the look-out men was stationed in the “eyes of
the ship” was too much for the senators of the land of graphic expression. What
it must have been in the more recondite matters I won’t even try to think,
because I have no mind for smiles just now. They were greatly exercised about
the sound of explosions heard when half the ship was under water already. Was
there one? Were there two? They seemed to be smelling a rat there! Has not
some charitable soul told them (what even schoolboys who read sea stories
know) that when a ship sinks from a leak like this, a deck or two is always blown
up; and that when a steamship goes down by the head, the boilers may, and often
do break adrift with a sound which resembles the sound of an explosion? And